Other similarities to 9/11--the U-turn maneuver (admittedly with a small plane) before descending on its way to strike the target, supposedly executed by a pilot who had not completed his training, and, in addition, was reported to have been intoxicated at the time. In fact, I've been unable to find reports online that confirm that Frank Corder was actually witnessed stealing the plane (would welcome links to such reports, if anyone knows of any), while some sites assert that no one actually witnessed him doing so. This, plus the fact that there was no radio communication from the plane, have led some to speculate that the plane was actually flown by remote control, and with the 'pilot' already a corpse when he was placed on board.

One theme that gets repeated in these news reports is the sense of fatalism, the notion that there may be certain threats that there's simply no way to defend against. Attribute such an act to a foreign organization rather than to a disturbed loner, and extend its effects to include civilian casualties, then it's not so difficult to persuade much of the US public to conclude that, since we can't really defend against these kinds of attacks, we have no choice but to send our military 'over there' and just keep on killing and killing until there are no potential threats left. Voila--war that will not end in our lifetime.

I see that one of the so-called counterterrorism experts is Vincent Cannistraro, who was part of the Iran-Contra gang in the '80s.